Sudden problems with Outlook

So suddenly Lookout, I mean Outlook, decided that it wouldn't open clickable links in emails anymore. Nothing. I keep getting errors about restrictions on this computer and please contact the system administrator. I remember fixing this once before and for the life of me can't remember how to fix it or even what the problem was related to in order to search for how to fix it.

Thanks for the help. I think Windows and/or Office basically decides from one day to the next if if wants to work or not.

The only people I've ever met that call it Lookout seem to have this unjust hatred for anything Microsoft. It doesn't decide to not work one day, you made changes to your system that broke the handlers in office. How is that Microsoft's fault?

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I don't remember uninstalling something other than a few programs and the Google Toolbar

So which is it? You didn't make any changes, or you uninstalled several programs, including something Google.

This is the one main reason that I've hated Windows for years and years. That freaking registry. Uninstalling programs shouldn't affect other apps like this.

Lol, as if that has anything to do with the registry. Being able to break things is a natural result of having a way to make them work together. You can click links in outlook, something somewhere tells outlook what do to with that link when clicked. You can change what happens, so you can also break it. That's just the nature of things.

This is the one main reason that I've hated Windows for years and years. That freaking registry. Uninstalling programs shouldn't affect other apps like this.

Absolutely. Operating systems should not provide any facility whatsoever for storing configuration information, such as what application should handle hyperlinks. Every time the operating system needs to make a decision about how to do something, you should be prompted, every single time. Are you kidding?

The only people I've ever met that call it Lookout seem to have this unjust hatred for anything Microsoft. It doesn't decide to not work one day, you made changes to your system that broke the handlers in office. How is that Microsoft's fault?

I've been an advocate of Microsoft products since 3.x, I love Outlook and have been using it in some form since the Exchange Client and Schedule+ in Windows 95. It's a great package.

However, the term "Lookout" is fair for a product that for years couldn't talk IMAP properly, used an easily corruptible backing store for content, and by default, took mail off your safely backed-up Exchange server and moved it to the same aforementioned corruptible format in a hidden folder on your C: drive every three months. In fact, every person I've met that has called it "Lookout" works in a Microsoft shop and likes their products for the most part, including Outlook.

This is the one main reason that I've hated Windows for years and years. That freaking registry. Uninstalling programs shouldn't affect other apps like this.

Absolutely. Operating systems should not provide any facility whatsoever for storing configuration information, such as what application should handle hyperlinks. Every time the operating system needs to make a decision about how to do something, you should be prompted, every single time. Are you kidding?

No, the real solution is that of iOS', which is to not allow the user or third party apps to change default programs AT ALL.

This is the one main reason that I've hated Windows for years and years. That freaking registry. Uninstalling programs shouldn't affect other apps like this.

Lol, as if that has anything to do with the registry. Being able to break things is a natural result of having a way to make them work together. You can click links in outlook, something somewhere tells outlook what do to with that link when clicked. You can change what happens, so you can also break it. That's just the nature of things.

If this were true, then links wouldn't work in web browsers if you didn't have Outlook installed, right? A browser shouldn't have anything to do with links in an email client made by another company.

If this were true, then links wouldn't work in web browsers if you didn't have Outlook installed, right? A browser shouldn't have anything to do with links in an email client made by another company.

Perhaps you weren't aware, but unlike a mail client (e.g. Outlook), which asks the registry what program should handle hyperlinks, web browsers don't. Why would they? A web browser handles hyperlinks itself. Duh.

A web browser writing to the configuration store that it should be launched when other programs have a hyperlink clicked and then not reverting that setting when uninstalled has nothing to do with the configuration store. It has to do with that application using it improperly.

This can happen with any piece of software on any operating system regardless of whether the configuration store is called a "registry" or not. On UNIX systems, it's called /etc. The fact that it's a bunch of text files in a directory doesn't change the fact that they can be misconfigured by third party software.

I'm not sure what happened. I don't remember uninstalling something other than a few programs and the Google Toolbar which my wife always seems to end up with.

This right here is almost certainly the problem: you uninstalled something whose uninstaller was poorly written and now Windows is not aware of what application should be handling links clicked in Outlook. If you go to Control Panel -> Default Programs and set Internet Explorer as the default web browser, there's a good chance that will fix the issue.

Your other problem is that there is at least one person using your computer who needs educating on how to avoid installing stupid crap. One way to limit that would be to ensure that all user accounts are "Standard User" rather than "Administrator" accounts.

It should go without saying that none of the problems you've described here are the fault of either Microsoft or Windows.

This is the one main reason that I've hated Windows for years and years. That freaking registry. Uninstalling programs shouldn't affect other apps like this.

Lol, as if that has anything to do with the registry. Being able to break things is a natural result of having a way to make them work together. You can click links in outlook, something somewhere tells outlook what do to with that link when clicked. You can change what happens, so you can also break it. That's just the nature of things.

If this were true, then links wouldn't work in web browsers if you didn't have Outlook installed, right?

No, completely wrong. Links clicked inside a web browser are unaffected by whether or not Outlook is installed. (Surely that should go without saying too, no?) You're describing the behavior of clicking links in Outlook, an application that attempts to open said links in a web browser, in order to be helpful.

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A browser shouldn't have anything to do with links in an email client made by another company.

Why on earth not? Microsoft recognizes that not everyone wants to click links in emails and have them open up in Internet Explorer, so they provide a way for users to select which browser will handle that, i.e. which application will be the default web browser. This is a useful thing. It's hardly their or Windows' fault, if [person] installs [application] whose installer says, "Set [blah blah] to be the default [blah blah]?" and then [person] clicks "Yes" to that, then later uninstalls [application], which has a poorly written uninstaller that breaks the default browser setting. The responsibility for that would be partly the user's and mostly the provider of [application].

First of all, I never had Chrome installed. So I never uninstalled it, yet alone another browser. The only program I know I uninstalled was the Google Toolbar. How could this have affected which browser was set as default when my wife really isn't too much of a geek to set something other than IE as the default one.

Still waiting to hear how it's Windows fault that some other application wrote invalid configuration information into the operating system's configuration store.

Apparently you're still unaware that applications, on any operating system, regularly write configuration data to a configuration store, whether it be a "registry", ini file, or .rc file and can write that data wrong. What's different about Windows?